Why the tension between LGBTers and the President's ardent supporters

President Obama's victory initiated a momentum where the celebrants and the LGBT community had to, by necessity, move in two somewhat different directions. It seems counterintuitive, but it's true.

When Republicans held power, the LGBT community could scream bloody murder, but it would never make much difference in the world.

With Democrats in power, we feel now that things could move in our favor. It's an opportunity, and it's a limited one. The pendulum will swing again to Republicans in time. Both sides like to talk about permanent majorities, but they just don't happen in history. Even if the Republican Party disintegrated tomorrow, something else would rise from its ashes representing the same conservative forces.

We have this slip of time, and as the first hundred days melted into the second, into six months, into . . . we began growing anxious. That anxiety was not helped by mixed signals from the President and those around him. All we have ever had are promises and tea leaves and lighter wallets. He says he supports us, he cavorts with known homophobes, he appoints a handful of gay individuals, he does nothing his first six months in office.

And ever that ticking clock.

That DOMA brief especially came like a drive-by egging while we were looking in the other direction, eyes on our watches. These federal "benefits" are the towel tossed to us from that same car making a return trip. It's not nearly enough to abrogate the offense.

We push because we can push when Democrats are in power. We push because we must push when liberalism is ascending. If we waste our opportunities now, we may find ourselves waiting another eight years. None of us are getting younger. In fact, as we get older, what happens with health benefits, pensions, and our children becomes an increasing source of anger and fear.

We've learned our lessons from the Clinton administration. If we cannot wait, we will not wait. We will push and fight and never ever back down, and we will hold Obama to account every single second of every single day, because these are our lives.

It's an irony in our current politics. When who we want is in power, we then need to proceed to beat the crap out of them to get what we want. Clinton and Blue Dog Democrats taught us that lesson, and it has been well-learned.

We didn't start this twisted dance toward equality, but we're going to finish it. It sucks, but that's just how it has to be now.

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Just some added thoughts:

This isn't to say that the LGBT community's goals aren't the same as everyone else's or that other causes aren't also pressing. We want health care reform, but we also want to make sure our families are protected by that reform. We want an end to military conflict, but we want LGBT veterans to be cared for and honored the same as their counterparts. We want social security to be available for the foreseeable future, but we want our families to benefit from it the same as yours.

LGBT Democrats are working for progressive reform, but there is an added undercurrent, always, for us. Nearly every law and reform passed by this administration carries an extra dimension for us, because we are currently not protected and not participant in the same ways 95% of the population is. There is no escape for us from this - never.

Government is not a house in need of repair - it is a swiftly moving river that must be channeled and corralled in perpetuity. There will always be an economy, there will always be health care, and there will never be a day where we gaze upon them from the seat of power and declare, "There, we've fixed it at last." To wait for that day in pursuit of our cause is to quiet ourselves in vain.

We must push. Our efforts will always be a game of political Goldilocks. Some will say we are too soft, some too rough. We will never balance or find that "just right" in a political body of a hundred million people.

But as long as all that pushing and shoving and scuffling is moving in the same direction, we should be ok in the end.

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This was originally a reply to http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8479402&mesg_id=8479402">Jackeen's very thoughtful post, but I'm posting it in its own thread at the urging of several posters.

:)

I'm referencing the dialogue in Jackeen's and http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8478838&mesg_id=8478838">Ruggerson's threads.

I hope it's understood I don't use "ardent supporter" pejoratively. It is merely my, perhaps poor, articulation of what Jackeen described in her post.

and in fact, I think he expects it; and further, I think he believes it will make him a better President.

No thinking person would want that.

He's even said as much.

isn't exactly how I would characterize most of threads I've seen here at DU in recent days in regards to President Obama- nor would I imagine it motivating President Obama (or anybody else) much if he actually saw some of what has been posted around here lately.

And I doubt he'd be that petty and spiteful.

these threads of frustration and anger would hurt his feelings.

but he might just not pay too much attention to the more hateful screeds though.

put out by GBLT organizations this week. Have you read any of them? Very powerful and eloquent. I'm sure he will find them moving.

I hope he wouldn't pay any attention to hateful screeds like "I won't let you ruin this for us!" posted by a straight person about Rick Warren being at the Inauguration. I would like to think he would be more caring than to give heed to a hateful sentiment like that.

What I might say at a bar among friends and what I would say in front of the President in the Oval Office would probably vastly differ in tone and language. DU is more bar than political meeting, the content of the boards aside.

That said, many people are simply frustrated - and weary. That weariness and frustration isn't a burden placed across our shoulders by eight years of Republican rule. It is a weariness and frustration of the soul, a cross borne from the days we learned to think and understand the society around us, little splinters of doubt and difference piercing our minds at a time when we were forming our very identities.

There are certainly days when I want to dispense with reason, politeness, and dialogue in favor of screaming and screaming and screaming. When those days occur, I hope people will understand and meet it with patience and compassion.

People don't reach for that tone at whim. It's rooted in decades of being denied basic human dignity.

We are all to varying degrees after eight years of Buscho and 12 long years of Congress being controlled by the GOP- ensuring that nothing gets done unless THEY want it to get done. I just hate to see it all taken out on President Obama, as well as on each other here at DU.

Outside of DU, speaking only for me, President Obama isn't the only focus. There is always a lot of tension and struggle among the various LGBT organizations. A lot of us are coming from different religious backgrounds that we're constantly trying to reconcile and progress, and there's an entire personal dimension based on whether or not our families, friends, and co-workers accept and support us.

However, many of those conversations are somewhat "inside baseball". If you go to the GLBT forum, you'll see dozens of topics that most posters there probably would never think to introduce to GD .

When in front of a general audience, it's usually easier and more effective to address the Big Picture.

I take what you're saying in that I do think more Congressional pressure must be brought to bear on our rights. However, what you're seeing is old vs new. The House and Senate are full of representatives we've dealt with in the past, we've watched do nothing, we've pleaded with to very nearly no effect.

Been there, fought that.

President Obama is a new creature, a political unknown, our greatest potential and our greatest question mark. Everything he and the executive branch does is a new development. We know Harry Reid will never do anything for us even if we pushed him right off the cliff.

We don't know that about President Obama, and that is the most urgent thing we're attempting to discover at this point in time.

I think that the communication style used will be the key. Building public support is part of the movement. If the tone set is of desire to work with the President and Congress to ensure that rights are no longer suppressed, it will likely produce positive results. If the image of the movement winds up being snarky and confrontational, then we’re going to lose people.

The loud, the soft-spoken, the ones working on the inside, the ones marching in the streets, the sit-ins, ALL of it is required.

I have a tough time imagining Ghandi or MLK, JR. being snarky.

While I agree with your basic premise, I do think that we should be careful about the image that we project.

They are just ordinary folks and sometimes they are angry.

I read a couple of articles yesterday. One laid out the case for LGBT equality well in a manner that was thought provoking. Another was very emotional and confrontational. My gut reaction to the second one was "If that's what they think, then screw them." Then as I moved through the article I caught myself, knowing that this wasn't what I actually thought. It made me start to think about the people who are going to read it and not check themselves because they don't have a strong opinion yet.

Everyone is not MLK or Ghandi, I agree.

and the press releases put out by GBLT organizations. I thought that the one put out by Garden State Equality that is posted in GBLT this morning was a model of clarity and power. Go check it out. :thumbsup:

I'm sure you recognize the difference and give GBLTs the credit for knowing how to be professional.

That's the right tone.

:applause:

...the more cruel and insupportable the foot-dragging appears.

Cheers... passing honesty... touching and moving.

What more is there to say?

:toast:

:kick:

I understand the political terrain. Rescinding DOMA, cancelling DADT, having equal rights for all and the ability for those who want to marry their partner are issues I understand and have helped in grassroots efforts and such. Many here on DU have as well.

Becuase I haven't thrown Obama under the bus for not getting every possible problem done yet, I would be accused of being one of the "President's ardent supporters". My bad.

That said, I understand that the LGBT issues that must be changed need to be changed in short order. But the political ways to get that done involve more than Obama. It's about getting enough votes in Congress to overturn DOMA and DADT. From there, equal marriage rights would hopefully be easier to have fulfilled. Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships have to be federally available as well.

I want my gay friends and relatives to be able to enjoy the same rights I have. Frankly, I don't think there really is that much of a division between those who are the "President's ardent supporters" and LGBTers... in fact, many are BOTH!

I have your back on LGBT issues.

The tensions, I think, are born from priorities and strategy, mindset and goals. But most importantly, a large component of the differences emerge from past treatment and experience. The LGBT community and progressives/Democrats at large generally move on parallel paths in the journey forward, but there will be deviations and occasional rocky bits because the two approaches originated from two somewhat different places.

I just wanted to share my views on why that is so.

When you sit down and look at the same chessboard, it's sometimes hard to understand why someone on your team would make different moves. Objectively speaking, some moves may be more elegant or cleaner than others. But when your experience involves people walking through the room, knocking the board from the table, and picking up various pieces to chuck at your head, you might start giving less thought to the look of the thing and just getting the game over with as quickly and ruthlessly as possible.

We both want to win, but our experience is necessarily altering how we see the game.

and a strong supporter of Equal Rights for all..I thank you for your respectful thoughts on where you're coming from..it means a lot.

i'm not an obama "fan". he wasn't my first or second choice. i'm not enamored with him, but for one very particular, very important reason i do respect him.

i hated bush. i hated him so much that i felt bile rising in my throat at every mention of him and every glimpse of him. i loathed his disregard of the democratic process and the constitution. now we have obama, who is a constitutional lawyer and who believes in the constitution and in the democratic process. i'm not happy about his stance on not prosecuting the previous administration and on not releasing the torture photos, but i also presume there are some very important political reasons for him not doing so. and while i don't care for his mostly moderate, barely liberal political beliefs, i got overruled when he was made the dem nominee. but i do believe that he is determined to follow the rule of law as closely as a president possibly can and to respect the constitution as a symbol of democracy, not as a useless piece of paper to be shat on. this means no bullshit bogus signing statements; no unitary executive theory; no end runs using executive orders to make temporary changes that get repealed in the next administration, or to carry out dastardly schemes.

so, if i say now, go obama and do whatever you have to do, take shortcuts, do end runs to make DOMA and DADT go away, i would be a big fat hypocrite. we wanted a president who respected the constitution and the rule of law and we got him. i want obama to do right by this following the letter of the law so it's infallable and unimpeachable. also, since any legislation on DOMA and DADT must go through congress, i have way more faith that obama is actually trying to get something done, and way less faith that congress is actually willing to take it up and do something about it. i can only think of 5 democrats off the top of my head who say they support gay marriage and i'm not sure i believe all 5 of them would put their money where their mouth is so to speak.

I don't want President Obama to use extra-constitutional means to push any part of his agenda through. An executive that adheres to the rule of law is the best answer we can give in reply to the lawlessness of the Bush era.

However, the executive branch does exercise broad discretion in the execution of its powers. There are very real differences in legal opinion about how far the administration can go without Congressional approval (and not the kind from the John Yoo school of justifying plainly illegal things). I believe these differences are in good faith, and I think the Obama administration could do quite a bit worse than address them and do what is best for its LGBT constituents.

When we talk about stop-loss as a tactic against DADT, for example, the argument is political rather than legal. Certainly it's within the president's authority.

With items like how DOMA is defended in court and DADT measures that can be taken right now, today, this moment if the president wanted, many of us are merely advocating for executive discretion that is perfectly legal and perfectly traditional in previous administrations.

There is a "very least he can do" the President can undertake that would signal to the community he means business. He has yet to do so, and that is where the increasing agitation is emanating from.

realist. Social change does not happen over night. For the first time in this country's history, a black man was elected President. That was such a historical moment considering the anguish and discrimination blacks have experienced for hundreds of years. After Lincoln freed the slaves, blacks were not immediately considered equals. I know that the struggles that gays face in America are not as tough compared to what blacks have gone through (slavery, lynching, disenfranchisement), but I just want to point out that the road to equality is a long one and cannot be rushed. Obama has been in office for about 6 months and yet I'm hearing gays (and straights) here call him a homophobe and comparing him to Bush. For crying out loud stop being so profane and shrill. Give Obama time to work and we'll reach our goal by the end of his presidency.

I'm too old

to be impatient. You have your life ahead of you, and when I falter you can keep on kicking ass

I mean that in all sincerity. I do what I know to do but maybe there is more than I can do that I don't even know about.

Withholding donations and writing polite but strong letters to the organizations telling them precisely why you're withholding them. In a similar vein, you could stop by your local representative's office and drop off a similar letter, letting those there know in polite, but firm terms why you're taking the action you are.

Writing to media.

Non-violent civil disobedience (I do like Dan Savage's idea of a couple a day protesting in front of the White House for one year).

At the moment, it seems drying up politicians' donor base and letting them know exactly why is having some effect.

I have written my representatives but will write more. I also handed out literature during the election that Virginia had it's defense of marriage act up for vote - unfortunately it didn't do much good. Oh, and I wrote a couple of letters to the editor of the local paper.